THE MARCH ON ROME 249
About a month later in his speech at Udine Mussolini
went still further, continuing his policy of blackmail, and
even raising his price :
e I think that the regime in Italy can be profoundly
altered, without touching the monarchy. On its side the
monarchy can gain nothing by opposing what may in
future be known as the fascist revolution. It can gain
nothing, for by so doing it would become a target which
we with our lives at stake could not spare. Those who
sympathize with us should not stay in the background ;
the king must have the courage to be a monarchist. Why
are we republicans ? In one sense because we see a king
who does not play his part. The monarchy could well
represent the continuity of the nation, a great task and
one of the utmost historical importance.3
The effect of the squadristi and the fascist syndicates had
been to win the landowners in a body over to fascism, to
such a degree that it wrould be more accurate to say that the
fascists had rallied in a body to the side of the landowners.
They had still to gain the upper middle classes, of whom
only a few, though very important, sections had taken any
direct part in the fight. To do this Mussolini extended the
action he had already begun for the ' demobilization' of
the state,, and he launched the party on a systematic
campaign for c restoring the national finances \ One may
well understand how attractive to Italian capitalists were
the pictures drawn by Mussolini in his Udine speech on
September 20 :
6 We want to strip the state of all its economic
functions. Enough of the state which acts as railway
owner, postman, insurance company. Enough of the
state which functions at the taxpayers' expense and
exhausts the finances of Italy. With the police, the
education of the rising generation, the army to ensure
the integrity of the fatherland, with foreign policy, no
one can say that the state thus restricted is diminished
in stature. No ; it is still very great, retaining all its
spiritual realm and renouncing the material one.*